A Plein Air Painting Trip to Venice

By the end of a very full and hectic week-long workshop and painting trip to Tuscany, my partners, professional photographers Bob and Jim Copeland, and I, decided that we would treat ourselves to a little visit to Venice, about 4 hours by train from our hotel in San Quirico d’Orcia. We were unexpectedly joined at the Chiusi/Chianciano Terme station by two of the photography workshop students, who had an enormous amount of luggage. As the only one of our group who spoke any Italian, I was elected to make sure we obtained the correct tickets and found the proper platform for our train. Bob and Jim’s job would be to bench-press all the heavy luggage up onto the overhead racks, which we prayed would not collapse. As we travelled north, we relaxed with a hearty lunch of prosciutto, cheese, olives, bread and a couple of good bottles of wine fresh from the local market. Now this was the way to travel!